'Tis the Season

Christmas eve day dawned in Frederick with beautiful sunshine and fairly reasonable temperatures. As Xena contemplated the impending arrival of Santa, Dave and I decided to go on a holiday adventure. Lacking time to plan anything grand, or the energy to travel any great distance, we decided to head out to Harpers Ferry to enjoy it's historic scenes of Christmas (thanks to the local shops) and mayem (thanks to the rebellion incited by John Brown, faithfully narrated at every historical landmark).

It's a stunning place and we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around. My only low point (pardon the pun) was descending the "see through" metal stairs on the other side of the train bridge - not a pleasant feeling for someone not entirely happy about heights. Other than that -and perhaps the inability to find an open coffee shop after 2:00pm - we had a fabulous time. We headed back to Frederick ready to feast on the bounty of chips, dips and cheeses waiting for us. Along with Shirley (Dave's mom) and Paul (our good friend who ran away to California), we managed to devour lots of goodies and mulled wine - in record time. What can be better than that? Why, PRESENTS...

Which leads us to a fabulous Christmas morning full of joy and goodwill to man(kind). I enjoyed my Canadian stocking while Dave played with his sheep (he he). Soon the living room was piled with paper and the five of us (3 humans and 2 kitties) were hungry and exhausted. Luckily we had iPods (Santa was good to us) to play with while waited for our guests to arrive.

With the arrival of Ellen, Russ, Patick and Fraser, we feasted yet again. Bellies full of food and glasses full of good cheer, we contemplated our good fortune and gave thanks for being so ridiculously blessed with friends and family (even those family members so very far away). Let's hope the new year brings as many wonderful moments.